Remy
by samus18
Summary: Ratatouille: Django muses on the friendship his son shares with the human, Linguini. Somewhat Django's POV. Kinda short.


Note: This is just a short little snippet of fanfic. I'd love nothing more than to write a beautiful, well-polished epic where each of the characters plays an important and interesting part, but I don't have the brains to come up with a fancy plot!

Still, I wanted to contribute a piece of my creativity to Ratatouille, because it's that awesome of a movie and it most definitely deserves its own section! 3

Anyway, hope you all like this shorty. :D

'_Remy'_

The sun was setting over Paris in a peaceful array of yellow-orange light, bathing the landscape in a soft evening glow. In the window of a moderately fancy home, there sat a rather young rat gazing dreamily out at the magnificent view Paris was flaunting.

Remy, calm and content as ever, allowed himself a gentle sigh as he rested his face in the palms of his tiny hands. Every evening before going to bed, this had been his favorite pastime - if gazing out a window could be considered a pastime. He never grew tired of the beauty that Paris had to offer.

He would often let his mind wander during these times which, in turn, usually led to him falling asleep in his bed beside the window.

The sound of footsteps interrupted his daze and he looked up to see Alfredo Linguini smiling his usual disarming smile down at him. Remy returned the smile, twitching his unusually perceptive nose and moving toward the edge of the countertop to greet his human friend.

"Hey, Little Chef," Linguini addressed Remy in his ever-cheerful manner, "time for a good night's sleep?"

Remy nodded in the middle of a yawn and stretched. A flicker of movement caught his eye and his smile widened as he called his father and brother over from the door they had crawled under. Of course, Linguini couldn't understand the rat, but he got the idea and looked down in the direction Remy was motioning toward.

Django and Emile stopped by often, and always at night to say goodnight to Remy. Django still had a little trouble getting used to the idea of his son sleeping in a human's house, but Emile, as usual, was optimistically indifferent to the notion once he understood that Remy and Linguini shared a friendship. A _strong _friendship.

Linguini blathered off several polite nothings to the two newcomers and kneeled down so he could lift them up to the counter. They both hopped on, Django's instincts somewhat tamed by the certainty that this human intended no harm.

"Hi guys!" Remy stepped over to them.

"Hey, kiddo. How was it today?" Django asked.

"Oh, crowded," he responded, tiredly.

"As usual?" Emile said and gave his dad a light nudge. Were Remy human, he would have blushed, but instead he bashfully rubbed the back of his head in response to his brother's flattery.

"Well, it's been a long day," Remy gave his dad a hug, then turned to Emile. "You guys'll come by tomorrow?"

"Every day!" Emile said, "As long as you're still serving those little stuffed mushrooms."

"_Mushrooms_?" Remy gaped, "…Emile, that's escargot."

"…Oh…well, they're still tasty, hehe!" he said, a little embarrassed.

"We gotta get goin'." Django said. "We'll see ya tomorrow." He and Emile stepped into Linguini's palm.

"Bye you guys," Remy waved with a smile, sleepy and grateful to be getting into bed.

As soon as they were safe on the floor, Django and Emile scampered across the room toward the door, but Django stopped and looked back.

Remy had snuggled under the covers of his little bed, comfortable as ever despite the presence of a human in the room. But it was the human Django was paying attention to. As caring as he was toward Remy, despite all he's seen that proved there _were _humans that cared about rats, Django's attention tonight was stuck on Linguini.

The human nuzzled the top of Remy's head with his two fingers, ever so gently, and bid him a good night with a smile on his face that Django could only describe as (dare he say it?) _loving_.

Remy, his _son_, was living inside a human's house, _cooking _for humans, _mingling _with humans, being _cared for _by humans…all of it was still strange to the rat patriarch. Sometimes he still couldn't understand how he got to this current position, how his _son _got to this position…but…in some way, he had always felt that Remy would be destined for something different. Django had just never wanted to believe it, had felt that with his guidance, Remy would eventually mature and grow past his fanciful longings and think like a normal rat.

Life had changed for the both of them.

The days of scavenging for food through refuse and garbage were over, because now the rats were given all they could ever want at La Ratatouille. They were safely hidden from less friendly human eyes and could go there whenever they pleased. It all seemed too good to be true.

Django had misjudged humans…_some _humans, that is. He realized it when Linguini had jumped in front of Remy just in time to shield him from the mob of angry cooks, and then had revealed the startling secret the both of them had kept, had even delivered all the credit that was given him over to Remy…and despite the way it turned out, both Django and Emile were stunned by Linguini's words. That's when Django decided he had been wrong.

Linguini now shut off the light and yawned, but before heading up to bed he tucked Remy in, careful to fold the blanket beneath his little friend, then left to his own room.

Django shook his head and gave his son one last gaze before trailing after Emile. It has occurred to him on the way back to the clan that the human didn't even know his son's name. The rats could understand Linguini, but their voices were too small for Linguini to understand _them_. That gave Django an idea.

For the next few days, he spent his free time shuffling through books that the rats had access to from La Ratatouille. When the other rats inquired about his activities, he would respond, "Just brushin' up on my knowledge" and continued turning the enormous pages. The rats found it a little strange, but didn't dare question their leader any further than they needed to.

One day, when Linguini was running to and fro around his house gathering miscellaneous items for work and glancing at his watch, Django paid a visit. The poor rat just narrowly avoided being trampled by the frantic human, but the young boy noticed his mistake and bent down as close to eye-level as he could get to the rat (who had given a yell in alarm - only a squeak to Linguini's ears.) The boy was rambling off a string of apologies to Django, but the rat waved his paw to let Linguini know there was no harm done.

Linguini breathed a rather nervous sigh of relief. "Little Chef's already at work, um…that is, your _son _is, uh…sir," he felt a little silly addressing a rat as "sir," even if that rat _was _the father of Little Chef (another name he felt ignorant using, knowing that they all probably had their own names, though he didn't have any way of finding them out.) But in no way did he want to come off as rude or ignorant to the father of a rat he truly respected .

With words, Django had no way of telling Linguini that he had come to see him. So instead, he did what he had come to do in the first place. Miming his paws as if he were writing on a piece of paper, Django looked inquiringly up at Linguini.

Linguini was becoming more stressed by the moment about being late for work, but decided he could give Django the time of day and retrieved a pencil and a piece of paper, nearly slipping over a pair of skates in the process.

He huffed. "Ok, here you go!"

Django stepped over to the pencil, stopped, and looked pointedly back at Linguini.

"Oh, sorry!" he gave a small laugh and broke the very tip of the pencil off. Unfortunately, it went flying across the room and Linguini dove after it, Django putting a paw over his eyes at the youth's clumsy display.

"Hehe, here you go," the boy blushed and handed Django the rat-sized pencil tip.

Trying to measure the words so they were big enough for Linguini to read, Django dragged the tip over the paper for what seemed like a long time (and even longer for Linguini, who must have checked his watch a dozen times.)

When Django finished, he crawled off the sheet of paper and grinned up at Linguini, who leaned down to see what the rat had written. On the paper were the words, shakily written:

"_His name is REMY." _


End file.
